


pedestals are wobbly old things

by fractiouscow



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, buffy the vampire slayer love, but not really, elle fanning and sean penn catch minor shrapnel, overt dragging of joss whedon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11881947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractiouscow/pseuds/fractiouscow
Summary: Kara and Lena have a movie night and end up discussing what it's like to love a creation and loathe a creator.AKA: I am salty about Joss Whedon but I love BtVS so damn much and my people are sick of hearing about it so I wrote this and now I feel slightly better.





	pedestals are wobbly old things

< >

 

Lena Luthor is not a fangirl.

 

Yes, she privately stans several singers, a handful of actors, and few dozen writers, but her enthusiasm is tempered with caution. Celebrities are people, people are fallible, and pedestals are wobbly old things. Ergo, she doesn’t idolize performers or artists, even her ‘faves.’ She doesn’t lose her shit when they drop a hit single or release a summer blockbuster or make the Booker dozen list.

 

But Kara Danvers does. In fact, fangirl Kara loses her shit in brilliantly tornadic fashion when someone she loves does something new or cool or even kinda mediocre - but only if they tried really hard or took a super scary risk on a project they really believed in despite knowing that it might not make money, yadda blah etc.

 

So Kara getting wildly happy over much-of-nothing wasn’t unusual, but the first time Lena witnessed that feverish level of heart-eyed squeeing channeled toward a creative who truly didn’t deserve her devotion…well, it kind of broke her heart. 

 

It happened on a random Friday night. After dinner (Palomas, pulled pork flautas, mushroom and spinach quesadillas) and before dessert (horchata ice cream), Kara excitedly fired up her television and shimmied across the floor in mismatched loungewear and fuzzy red socks. Glasses off and hair down, she was ready for a CatCo-free, DEO-free movie night with her best girl.

 

“I’m excited! I didn’t think I’d be this excited? But I am?” She flung herself onto the couch, middle cushion, and bounced a few times before stilling. On glimpsing Lena’s warm but reserved expression, Kara’s yardstick smile scaled back a few inches. “Oh, jeez. I’m being weird about this. I don’t mean to wig out, it’s just that I’ve loved his work since I was a kid and - ”

 

“Please don’t get self-conscious,” Lena interrupted. “Your enthusiasm is very sweet. It’s number six on the list of things I love about you.”

 

Kara flushed prettily. “Number six? That’s pretty high, isn’t it?”

 

Green eyes flashed with mischief. “That enthusiasm covers a broad field of endeavors.”

 

“You.” Kara wagged a finger of warning. “Don’t start. We still have a movie to watch. And ice cream to destroy!”

 

Lena scooped a modest serving of hand-churned cinnamon and tiger nut delight for herself and a tummy ache portion for Kara, who barely refrained from face planting in the bowl.

 

“Ahh! This smells so good!” She beamed and wiped a dot of cream from the tip of her nose. “Thank you for dinner. Everything was awesome, even though you broke our ‘no spinach’ contract.”

 

“Oh, please. That was a verbal agreement at best, and it only blacklisted kale.” Lena settled back against the couch arm, legs jackknifed and bare feet resting against Kara’s hip.

 

Kara narrowed her eyes. “I understood it to be a moratorium on all leafy greens.”

 

Lena raised one brow and smirked. “Perhaps you should have consulted an attorney.”

 

“A spinach loophole.” Kara essayed a half-hearted sulk. “You’re very crafty, Luthor.”

 

“Indeed. How fortunate that I only use my powers for good.”

 

“Debatable,” Kara muttered. “But you did bring ice cream and let me pick the movie.”

 

“Wholesome deeds to offset my perceived transgressions.” Lena snickered and licked her spoon. “My life in a nutshell.”

 

Blue eyes focused on her mouth, lingered a moment, then squinted into a fresh smile. Kara fiddled with the TV remote and searched for the movie. “Okay, so this is the first thing he’s done in a while that isn’t about superheroes, so I can watch it without nitpicking every little…nit-thing.”

 

Lena nodded, conceding how annoying those films must be for a real superhero. “So what’s it about?”

 

“I don’t know all the particulars, but Elle Fanning is like this KGB spy prodigy who wants to defect to the west. Sean Penn is the CIA dude trying to work out whether she’s for real, and amid all the cloak and dagger drama, I think they fall in love.”

 

“Ew.”

 

Lena didn’t mean to say it out loud. But she felt it, and said it, and it brought Kara up short.

 

“Ew?”

 

Lena shrugged. “She’s a teenager and he must be almost forty years her senior.”

 

Kara paused and considered that point as the opening credits played. “…yeah. That’s…yeah. But maybe they don’t fall in love? Maybe I misunderstood the trailer.”

 

As the final credit arrived, displaying the name of the writer/director, Lena sighed in resignation. “Joss Whedon?”

 

“Yeah! He did ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and a bunch of other cool shows. Alex and I watched them all on DVD when I was in middle school.” Kara’s smile was half anticipation and half nostalgia. “This is gonna be so awesome!”

 

In the movie’s opening scene, Fanning’s highly skilled covert operative character waylaid a clutch of gin-swilling middle-aged businessmen by dancing sexily and drugging their drinks. One nearly caught her and she improvised a distracting kiss. With tongue.

 

Lena set aside her ice cream. Kara slumped into the couch cushions. It only got worse from there.

 

The “heroine,” as it turned out, suffered from a raging Electra complex, made erratic decisions which she blamed on her menstrual cycle, and routinely infused sexual innuendo into every single conversation with Penn’s jaded, omniscient cocksman.

 

During the first love scene, Lena pretended she had to pee. She urged Kara not to hit the pause button. During the second love scene (an icky assignation in an airplane bathroom), Lena finished off the pitcher of Palomas. During the final love scene, wherein Fanning professed that she had caught feelings and wanted to quit the spy game and make scowly widdle babies with Penn, Lena - tequila tipsy and out of patience - started laughing. Really damn hard.

 

She toppled sideways across Kara’s lap and crawled to the opposite end of the couch, vainly trying to choke back a chain of rude snorts. Kara pressed her hands over her eyes and leaned her head back, groaning pitifully.

 

“I’m sorry,” Lena gasped, trying to regain her composure. “I’m so sorry, it’s just…oh my god they’re fucking again!”

 

She cackled and turned away from the screen. Kara shuddered and shut off the movie.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Lena repeated, her voice muffled against a throw pillow. “I shouldn’t be laughing. I’m such an asshole.”

 

“No, no, you’re okay,” Kara said, patting Lena’s legs, which had made an arch bridge over her lap. “I don’t understand. The same guy who made _that_ …he made Buffy? I just don’t get it.”

 

She sounded so dejected that Lena bit her tongue, swallowed down all the sardonic comments she longed to make about the auteur and his peculiar, ever-devolving take on feminism. Kara was probably reevaluating her love for a childhood icon based on the clay feet of that icon’s creator, and that was truly unfortunate.

 

“A lot of people made Buffy,” Lena offered, sitting up and laying an arm across Kara’s shoulders. “Some of them are wonderful. Some of them are priapic dickheads. That doesn’t mean the show itself was disingenuous. You loved it, right?”

 

Gaze downcast, Kara softly smiled. “Of course. Buffy wanted so badly to just be a normal girl, but she had this giant responsibility, this duty, that she couldn’t run away from, no matter how much she wanted to. She was brave and resourceful and noble, even when people shunned her or treated her like a freak. It was…something I _needed_ to see? I think Alex knew that.”

 

Lena laid her head against Kara’s arm. “So if it meant something to you, if it inspired you or helped validate your feelings, hang on to that. Keep loving it. Don’t let anyone take it away from you.”

 

Kara wiped a sleeve across her reddened eyes. “Okay.”

 

“Okay.” Lena pressed a small kiss against her temple. “God, I’m so glad he didn’t make the Wonder Woman movie.”

 

“Mmm.” With a slight nod, Kara brushed her lips against Lena’s mouth. The kiss was sweet and slow, cream and cinnamon and not the least bit bitter.

 

“You know, I think you’d make a great Wondy,” Kara whispered.

 

“Angling for some cosplay action, Supergirl?”

 

The superhero rolled her eyes so hard it was almost audible. “No! I’m serious!”

 

Lena made a general pooh-poohing sort of noise. “In that case, I’m very flattered, but we both know I run like a penguin and I’m too…buxom.”

 

Kara spluttered and shifted forward, holding Lena tight with one arm. “I’m sorry, have you never seen the way comic artists draw Diana Prince?”

 

She snagged her cell phone from the coffee table and googled a random Wonder Woman image, which wound up being an Alex Ross painting of the Amazon goddess kneeling on a seaside cliff.

 

Lena examined the image with both eyebrows fully hiked. “That’s a lot of boobs.”

 

“Is what I’m saying!” Kara giggled and rocked Lena closer, fully onto her lap. “Palate cleanser idea: let’s just watch Wonder Woman again!”

 

“Sure.” Lena took advantage of her proximity and improvised a distracting kiss. With tongue. “Leave it playing in the background.”

 

 

 

> <

 


End file.
